Help build a monument to the pioneering 20th century African-American journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells, who fought lynching.

Wells was born a slave in 1862 in Mississippi. When three African-American friends of hers were lynched in Memphis, Tennessee in 1892 for defending their successful grocery store from white assailants, she began an anti-lynching crusade, gathering information on lynching incidents, forming anti-lynching societies, and writing and speaking against lynching.

She also fought for women’s rights and helped form the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), but later drifted away from it. She died of kidney disease in 1931 at the age of 68.

Wells ultimately settled in Chicago, and a group hopes to build a monument to her in the neighborhood where she and her family lived. As of late April, they’ve raised a third of the funds they need. Sculptor Richard Hunt has agreed to create the monument.